vivacity

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word vivacity. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word vivacity, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say vivacity in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word vivacity you have here. The definition of the word vivacity will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofvivacity, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Etymology

vivac(ious) +‎ -ity, borrowed from Latin vīvācitās.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /vɪˈvæsɪti/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Hyphenation: vi‧va‧ci‧ty

Noun

vivacity (countable and uncountable, plural vivacities)

  1. The quality or state of being vivacious.
    • 1612, Francis Bacon, “Of Youth and Age”, in Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral‎:
      But reposed natures may do well in youth. […] On the other side, heat and vivacity in age, is an excellent composition for business.
    • 1738, David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part I, Section III. Of the Ideas of the Memory and the Imagination,
      We find by experience, that when any impression has been present with the mind, it again makes its appearance there as an idea; and this it may do after two different ways: either when in its new appearance it retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity, and is somewhat intermediate betwixt an impression and an idea: or when it entirely loses that vivacity, and is a perfect idea.
    • 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, chapter 1, in The Vicar of Wakefield‎:
      The one entertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious.
    • 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, chapter 2, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, , published 1792, →OCLC:
      In the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a sound constitution; and why to damp innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told, that men will draw conclusions which she little thinks of?
    • 1819, Walter Scott, chapter 5, in The Bride of Lammermoor‎:
      Some secret sorrow, or the brooding spirit of some moody passion, had quenched the light and ingenuous vivacity of youth in a countenance singularly fitted to display both […]
    • 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 2, in Anne of Green Gables‎:
      […] an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child […]

Synonyms

Translations

Anagrams

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia